Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We come to the shadow Secretary of State.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

The Minister mentions local government reorganisation. On 5 February, the Deputy Prime Minister stated:

“We are postponing elections for one year, from May 2025 to May 2026”—[Official Report, 5 February 2025; Vol. 761, c. 767.]

but on 17 February, the Minister, in a written parliamentary question, said that

“new unitary…government will be established or go-live in 2027”

or 2028. Will the Minister confirm that these elections are not being postponed, and that they are, in fact, being cancelled for up to three years, meaning that councillors will serve terms of up to seven years? Will he also confirm that the Deputy Prime Minister may have unintentionally misled the House, and will he correct the record?

[Jim McMahon]

I can start by confirming that the Deputy Prime Minister did not mislead the House. The Opposition would do well not to muddy the waters. They know better than anybody what local government reorganisation means. Over the past few years, when they were in government, they postponed 17 sets of elections to allow reorganisation to take place. Although elections are being postponed in nine councils, 24 sets of elections will still take place this year. Let us not allow this to be whipped up into something that it is not.

We absolutely want to move at pace on reorganisation. We want to see proposals developed and presented early—the sooner the better—so that we can move to those shadow authorities, and so that local people can elect the new bodies that will deliver public services in their area and be accountable to them. To be clear, nobody will benefit—not the leaders of Conservative councils who have asked for postponement, nor members of the public—if we make the matter more confused than it needs to be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Help to Buy helped 350,000 young first-time buyers and the stamp duty discount helped 640,000 first-time buyers get on the housing ladder with discounts of up to £11,000. Both are now scrapped. Is the Secretary of State pulling up the housing ladder behind her?

[Angela Rayner]

It is staggering that the shadow Secretary of State says that, given that so many people now cannot get housing because his Government failed to meet their housing targets. We will have a mortgage guarantee scheme and we will build 1.5 million homes so that young people and other people can get the houses that they deserve.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I will try again. The Government’s manifesto promised to preserve the green belt. Then grey belt came along, which was supposed to be a few garage forecourts. Now it turns out that grey belt will mean 640 square miles of green belt—the size of Surrey—are to be built on. Is this simply another broken promise?

[Angela Rayner]

I will also try again. Under the Tories, the number of homes approved on greenfield land increased nearly tenfold since 2009. Labour will be strategic in grey belt release, and we will have a brownfield-first policy.